Aw, damn.
Handing her over to Michael then turning his back wasn’t going to be easy. The instant she’d walked into Mary Tiger’s, she’d snagged him with those big brown eyes and lighted a fire among the cold ashes, all that remained of his heart. The prospect of her in his bed had its charm, but not for the long haul. She deserved better.
For a year now, he’d battled his demons alone—with some help from Mary Tiger. Keeping to himself was the only way he’d managed to stay sane and hold anger and grief at bay. He couldn’t risk Angel’s teaching him to care again. Leaving her with Michael would be doing himself—and her—a favor.
He leaned across the bed and jostled her soft, rounded shoulder. “Angel, wake up.”
She stretched languorously with a wide, sleepy smile that stirred his senses and evoked a responding grin. But as consciousness claimed her, horror flooded the depths of her eyes, and her smile vanished. “The newscast—it wasn’t just a bad dream?”
He shook his head. “Hurry and dress. We have to meet someone.”
Her feathery eyebrows peaked with suspicion. “Who?”
“Michael Winslow.”
Her look of mistrust turned to fear. “A cop?”
“A defense attorney.”
She bolted upright, and the movement drew the thin cotton T-shirt taut across her high, firm breasts. He glanced away to squelch the warmth rising in his blood and avoid the accusation in her eyes.
“You’re turning me in?” Her simple question hung heavy in the charged atmosphere of the room.
“No.” He forced himself to face her, to watch disappointment flood her features. “You are.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t have much choice—”
“How can I defend myself if I can’t remember? And even worse—” She snapped off the words with trembling lips.
“What’s even worse?”
“What if I’m guilty?” The agony in her hushed voice rebuked him for a traitor.
“Are you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like a murderer, but how’s a murderer supposed to feel?”
At the gloomy confusion in her eyes, he shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from holding her, consoling her. She needed competent legal advice, not solace from a guy whose own life was a mess.
“Let’s take an objective look at your situation,” he said more calmly than he felt. “Every cop in the state is on the lookout for you. You have two guys with bad intentions on your tail. And you have no idea where your daughter is. Is your memory any better today?”
She shook her head.
“If you turn yourself in, you’ll be safe in jail from the men who’re after you, and the police can turn their efforts to finding Brittany.”
In defiance, she raised her chin a notch and crossed her arms over her breasts, but not before he noticed the trembling in her hands. “Can’t I just stay in disguise and you help me find Brittany?”
“Believe me, things will go better for you if you surrender of your own free will. For me, too.”
She lifted her head and confronted him with hurt in her eyes. “You’re that anxious to get rid of me?”
Lucky for him, she had no idea how torn he was over his decision. She’d be better off with Michael than a washed-up ex-cop with no future. “If I stay with you, we could both end up in jail.” A little guilt might nudge her in the right direction.
“Why would they arrest you? You haven’t done anything.”
“Except harboring a fugitive—” he ticked off the charges on his fingers “—obstruction of justice, possibly even accessory after the fact. Heard enough?”
She nodded, downcast. “Who is this Michael?”
“Winslow’s a friend of mine, and one of the best criminal attorneys in the country.”
“Can I trust him?”
“That’s for you to decide, but if we’re going to meet him, we have to hurry.”
Varied emotions flitted across her face as she deliberated, until, finally, a mask of grim resolution settled over her. “I’ll listen to what he has to say, but I’m not making any promises.”
Uncurling her longs legs from the covers, she tugged the T-shirt modestly over her hips and hurried into the bathroom to dress.
JORDAN SCANNED THE WIDE alley on which Tom O’Riley, a retired sergeant from the Sunset Bay department, had built his sports bar. At the far end, rush-hour traffic thundered by on the boulevard, but none of the businesses on the alley itself had opened yet. A stray cat, prowling for scraps by the Dumpster across the way, was the only sign of life.
As if to keep from snatching the itchy hat and black wig from her head, Angel sat on her hands on the steps of the bar. Dark glasses covered her eyes, but the tense set of her jaw and shoulders transmitted her anxiety. She stiffened as a sleek, silver Infiniti turned into the alley and pulled to a stop beside them.
The tinted window on the driver’s side slid down with an electronic purr. Michael Winslow, the top button of his oxford dress shirt undone, his red, patterned-silk tie loosened and long sleeves rolled above his wrists, greeted them with his jury-charming smile.
“Hop in. We can talk at my office over breakfast.”
As if having second thoughts, Angel hung back until Jordan cupped her elbow and urged her forward. “It’s okay. You have to trust me.”
Unable to imagine what she must be feeling without memories or a familiar face to rely on, he opened the back door of Michael’s car, then climbed in behind her.
Michael swiveled, introduced himself and reached over the seat to extend his hand.
“I’m...Angel.” She shook his hand quickly, then clasped her own in her lap.
Michael cocked a questioning eyebrow, but Jordan shook his head, indicating explanations could wait. His friend turned back to the wheel and drove out of the alley onto the traffic-choked boulevard.
Ten years earlier when he was a rookie cop, Jordan had met Michael, a wet-behind-the-ears assistant state attorney, on the ball field. Opposing players on their departments’ softball teams, they’d often stayed late after games, consuming draft beer, pizza and endless hours of the ESPN cable network at their favorite watering hole.
The two could have been brothers, both tall and well-muscled with thick, light brown hair. But where Jordan’s eyes were dark blue, Michael’s were a deep ivy-green, and a spate of freckles across the bridge of his nose created an illusion of youthful innocence, a quality that served him well in the courtroom, especially with female jurors.
Both loners who excelled at their jobs, between their crime-fighting work and love of sports, they had found a lot in common. A few years later, when Jordan was promoted to detective, they had worked together on several important cases. Three years ago, Michael left the state attorney’s office and opened his own practice, and Jordan had kept in touch, meeting. his old friend often at Tom O’Riley’s.
Until last April, when Jordan had lost contact with everyone.
He thrust the grim memories away. They were water under the bridge, and he had to concentrate on helping Angel—and not repeating his mistakes.
He flinched when she grabbed his arm, dug her nails into his flesh and hissed between clenched teeth. “You promised. No police.”
Following her terrified gaze, he saw that the car was approaching the modern glass-and-steel structure of the mainland headquarters of the Sunset Bay Police Department.
“Relax. Michael’s office is only two blocks from here,” he assured her.
When the Infiniti passed the imposing building without slowing, she reclined against the butter-soft leather seat and released her death grip on his forearm.
Michael turned the car onto a street lined with royal palms and restored Art Deco buildings. They traveled another block to a gleaming white building trimmed with bright turquoise, where he pulled into a narrow driveway. In a covered carport in a parking lot at the rear, he turned off the engine.
Jordan exited and scanned the e
mpty lot before circling to open Angel’s door. Without a word, she accompanied him, following Michael across the pavement, shaded from the hot morning sun by jacarandas thick with purple blossoms. Dense hedges of podocarpous concealed them from any onlookers in buildings on either side.
They stepped inside a rear entrance to a broad, air-conditioned hallway with a floor of Italian tiles and soothing white plaster walls hung with vivid modern art. Jordan suppressed a whistle at the elegance. Michael had come a long way from his cramped, utilitarian cubicle at the state attorney’s office.
“The conference room is the second door on your left,” Michael said. “We can talk there.”
“May I use your rest room first?” A white line edged Angel’s tight mouth, and for a moment, Jordan feared she was going to be sick.
“Sure. Meet us in the conference room.”
Michael indicated a door on the right, and Angel lunged through it. Jordan followed Michael into the conference room, where Claire Sedgwick, Michael’s rosy-cheeked, gray-haired secretary, was setting out a continental breakfast on the sideboard.
“Hold all my calls and appointments until we’re finished here,” Michael instructed her.
She nodded and left the room, passing Angel, on her way in.
Jordan watched Michael’s jaw drop when he looked at Angel. She had removed her wig and hat in the rest room, and her blond hair framed her face like a sunlit cloud.
As if aware of Jordan’s scrutiny, Michael quickly recovered the poker face he utilized so effectively in the courtroom. “Help yourselves to breakfast. Then we can talk.”
Angel poured a cup of black coffee and selected a cranberry muffin before taking an upholstered seat at the massive mahogany table. Despite having little appetite, Jordan filled his plate and sat across from her.
Michael settled at the head of the table between them. “Now, Mrs. Swinburn, why don’t you tell me everything?”
Jerking at his use of her name, Angel sloshed coffee onto the polished tabletop. “You recognize me?”
“Hard not to,” Michael said with a congenial smile.
He grabbed a linen napkin from the sideboard and mopped up the spill before opening a second napkin and spreading it across the lap of his expensive trousers. “Especially since we’ve worked together for the last two years on the fund-raising committee for Sunset County’s children’s hospital. Don’t you remember?”
“That’s the problem,” Jordan said, “or at least part of it. She doesn’t remember anything.”
“Holy—” Michael stifled the curse by downing a swallow of orange juice. “I’ve seen the news reports. You’d better tell me what you can of your side of the story.”
Angel nodded to Jordan. “You first. Your memories go back further than mine.”
“It started Sunday night,” Jordan explained, “when Angel showed up at Mary Tiger’s bar on the beach.”
He described his scuffle with the men who had tried to kidnap her, her subsequent injury and carrying Angel to his boat. Then Angel, nervously crumbling her muffin, recounted the rest.
When she reached the end of her story, she added, “Jordan thinks I should turn myself in.”
“He’s right,” Michael agreed.
“But I’m innocent...I have to be.” Desperation edged her voice, but she held her composure.
Michael lowered his coffee cup and looked straight into her eyes. “All the more reason to turn yourself in and get to the bottom of this.”
“But the police believe I killed him.”
“As long as they’re convinced you did it,” Jordan said, “the cops won’t be looking for anyone else. You can’t convince them of your innocence unless you can refute their evidence. And they won’t share that evidence until your attorney requests it.”
The trust in her eyes stabbed him with fresh guilt over his plans to leave. He’d seen that trusting look before in other eyes, eyes that would never see anything again.
To avoid her gaze, he turned to Michael. “Several aspects of Angel’s case don’t make sense.”
“Let’s hear them.” Michael leaned forward, giving Jordan his full attention, just as he had to Angel, his finely-tuned intelligence evident in the intensity of his green eyes.
“Mary Tiger said Angel—” Jordan stumbled at Michael’s raised eyebrow “—uh, Sara was looking for me right before the scuffle when she lost her memory. It doesn’t make sense that someone who’s just killed her husband would wander into a public place in search of an ex-cop.”
“You’re right,” Michael said.
Jordan glanced at Angel. “Then there’s the break-in at her in-laws’ house, on Turtle Key. She went there almost immediately after David died. Why?”
“Could be she was angry and intended to kill them, too,” Michael suggested. At Angel’s horrified gasp, he held up his hands. “I’m only playing devil’s advocate.”
“The Swinburns were at home asleep,” Jordan said. “If Angel had wanted to harm them, she could have, easily. No, I think she was searching for something.”
“Brittany?” Michael suggested.
“Maybe. Or she was looking for a place to hide from the men who are after her.”
“But why are they after me?” Angel’s voice rose with frustration. “None of this makes sense.”
“You’ll know more after you turn yourself in,” Jordan answered. “The state attorney’s office will have to share all their evidence against you with Michael. Once you know what that evidence is, you can fit the pieces of the puzzle together.”
The cop in him itched to get his hands on that evidence, but studying the case against her would only draw him in deeper and make leaving that much harder.
Across the burnished surface of the table, Angel leaned toward him, soft lips gently parted, flawless skin flushed and eyes bright with hope, radiating an innocence that couldn’t be faked. If hers was the face of a killer, he’d lost his touch in assessing a suspect—or else his judgment had been compromised by other emotions.
He resisted becoming more entangled in Angel’s problem—or the snare of her attraction. Time for him to bow out, and he was ready with the perfect excuse.
“Michael’s brother Ryan does investigations for him,” Jordan explained to Angel, before looking to Michael. “Ryan can handle the detective work on Angel’s case.”
“Ryan’s in Tallahassee on another matter. He could be gone for weeks.” Michael continued scribbling notes on a legal pad with a gold-and-ebony Mont Blanc pen.
The sense of inevitability that had gripped Jordan since his first encounter with Angel settled on him like a steel trap. The harder he fought responsibility for her, the tighter her hold on him grew.
She leaned toward Michael. “If I surrender to the police, will you represent me?”
“Yes.”
Michael picked up a phone from the credenza behind him and punched the intercom. “Claire, get Dr. Stuart Rosenbaum on the phone.”
“Rosenbaum?” Jordan said. “The psychiatrist?”
“I want Sara’s amnesia evaluated before she surrenders to the police.”
Hurt filled Angel’s eyes. “Don’t you believe me?”
Michael placed his hand over hers. “What’s important is whether the judge believes you’ve lost your memory or suspects you’re playing for sympathy. I want a professional opinion the judge will respect before we attend the advisory hearing. Rosenbaum’s the best there is.”
Jordan saw Michael’s hand on Angel’s, heard the soft consolation in the attorney’s voice and watched her hang on his every word. An uncomfortable feeling shot through him, so foreign he needed a moment to identify it.
Jealousy.
With an inward groan, he slid deeper in his chair. He couldn’t remember the green-eyed monster nipping him before. His plan to abandon her to Michael was looking less likely by the minute.
AT FOUR O’CLOCK that afternoon, Angel sat stiffly behind the defense table in the Circuit Court of Sunset County, her hands
clasped in her lap. She issued up a silent prayer of gratitude that she’d been spared the indignity of handcuffs and leg irons at this hastily arranged advisory hearing.
She was thankful, too, she’d been allowed to dress in the conservative beige suit, ecru silk blouse and low heels Jordan had spirited from her apartment, instead of the shapeless orange coverall of a Sunset County inmate. The familiar fit of the clothes boosted her self-confidence.
Michael had pulled a few more strings and arranged for her advisory hearing in the courthouse, rather than the usual closed-circuit appearance with other prisoners, televised from the county jail.
But her deepest gratitude came from the fact that the authorities, realizing Brittany wasn’t with her, had stepped up a statewide search for her daughter. She closed her eyes and prayed that Brittany, the daughter she couldn’t remember, would be found safe—and soon.
At the table beside her, Michael rustled papers, and behind the railing, Jordan sat with Dr. Rosenbaum, both ready, if called on, to testify to her amnesia. Jordan’s steady and comforting gaze warmed her back.
Butterflies danced in her stomach, and her palms were damp, but her present nervousness was nothing compared to the stark terror she’d suffered when Jordan and Michael had accompanied her to the police station to turn herself in.
To avoid cameras and reporters, she’d been rushed into the police building through the sally port and had also exited there into the closed van that had brought her to the courthouse.
“All rise.”
At the clerk’s command, Michael’s hand beneath her elbow propelled her to her feet. She managed to trade glances with Jordan and catch his nod of reassurance before Judge Wilbur Zacharias swooped onto the bench in a flapping black robe. He took his seat and peered at her over narrow bifocals.
“Sara Swinburn,” he intoned in a booming voice consistent with the magnitude of his office, “you are charged with murder in the first degree. How do you plead?”
Her mouth turned dry, and the unsteadiness in her knees made her appreciate Michael’s supporting hand beneath her elbow.
She forced her response through stiff lips. “Not guilty, your honor.”
A Woman of Mystery Page 6
